Friday, December 03, 2004
Dissin an Andrew Sullivan Article
Sullivan makes a reasonably good point in this piece:
Just a couple days after TNR published this piece which pooh-poohed Frank Rich's claim that viewership numbers for Desperate Housewives is higher in red states than in blue states, Sullivan repeats the charge. [-ed Doesn't Sullivan read TNR? Wasn't he an editor at one point or something?] (Side note: I would really love to get my hands on the original TV Weekly report that spawned this particular meme.)
Then continuing the supposition that red states don't actually value marriage more, Sullivan brings up the very TX-MA divorce rate canard we debunked a few weeks ago [-ed Doesn't Sullivan read polyscifi? -Ha! Ha! Ha!]. To bolster his "red states don't value marriage in practice" charge, Sullivan does add one point that we have not considered before - the percentage of people unmarried in each state. Sullivan cites 32.4% of TX as unmarried, and MA as 26.8% - a difference of 5.6% However, this is entirely an artifact of TX having a younger population than MA. Let me back that up with the census which notes that 22.8% of MA is under 18 while 28% of TX is under 18 - a difference of 5.2%. The fact that TX is significantly younger than MA has everything to do with the difference in unmarried numbers.
Sullivan then shifts gears to look at the comparative abortion rates in the US and the Netherlands. So why would Sullivan stop with the red v blue comparison? Why not compare TX and MA again to continue the logical conceit? Particularly if the reason for the piece is to highlight the internal conflicts within America...
Perhaps because the ostentatious reason given for the piece is really just cover for a hit on conservatives.
Perhaps because the comparison on this statistic does not support his poorly reasoned argument. The TX rate is 24.8 abortions / 1000 women and the MA rate is 30.2 abortions / 1000 women. (source) The numbers are even worse when you consider the ratio of abortions to births. Using this source, the birth rate in TX is 17.6 / 1000 persons and in 13.0 in MA. Without counting miscarriages, it appears pretty clear that a higher percentage of conceptions in MA (53%) end in abortions than in TX (41%). (for this stat, conceptions = births + miscarriages)
Then Sullivan adds this beaut: "A recent study, however, found no measurable difference in divorce rates between those who are "born again" and those who are not. 29 percent of Baptists have been divorced, compared to 21 percent of Catholics." (again making me think this is more of a hit piece than anything else). Rather than continuing the comparison across red and blue, Sullivan is now comparing against two different red groups (Catholics voted Republican in this past election). Further the comparison loses all sense of perspective. Both of these groups have divorce rates much lower than the national average (about half of all marriages end in divorce). So in light of Sullivan's thesis - the Baptists (and the Catholics) are practicing what they preach - the Catholics are just a little bit better about it. And this might just be influenced by the greater emphasis that Catholics place on divorce - you can't divorce and be considered a good Catholic - it's a mortal sin (i.e. the Catholics preach against divorce more, so they divorce less - words do line up with actions).
The rest of the article is just a long sequence of ad hominen tu quoques - the very form of argument that TNR railed against. So if you want to read one of the worst reasoned articles I've read in a while, go read Sullivan's piece.
A final note - I exchanged some emails with Sullivan on my problems with his article. While I'm grateful for his response, Sullivan hasn't given any appearance of wanting to correct the logical errors. Thus, the best recourse left to me was to post this.
UpdatePer Roger's and Matt's comments, the abortion rates are inflated due my abortion stats only being for women 15-44 (which I failed to notice) versus birth rates for the entire population. When you correct for that, the abortion/conception rates drop down to the better (but still too high) rate of around 25%.
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Within many a red state voter, there's a blue state lifestyle. And within many a blue state liberal, there's a surprisingly resilient streak of moralism. And it is this internal conflict that makes America still such a vibrant and compelling place.However, the anecdotes that Sullivan uses to arrive at this conclusion are remarkably poorly reasoned.
Just a couple days after TNR published this piece which pooh-poohed Frank Rich's claim that viewership numbers for Desperate Housewives is higher in red states than in blue states, Sullivan repeats the charge. [-ed Doesn't Sullivan read TNR? Wasn't he an editor at one point or something?] (Side note: I would really love to get my hands on the original TV Weekly report that spawned this particular meme.)
Then continuing the supposition that red states don't actually value marriage more, Sullivan brings up the very TX-MA divorce rate canard we debunked a few weeks ago [-ed Doesn't Sullivan read polyscifi? -Ha! Ha! Ha!]. To bolster his "red states don't value marriage in practice" charge, Sullivan does add one point that we have not considered before - the percentage of people unmarried in each state. Sullivan cites 32.4% of TX as unmarried, and MA as 26.8% - a difference of 5.6% However, this is entirely an artifact of TX having a younger population than MA. Let me back that up with the census which notes that 22.8% of MA is under 18 while 28% of TX is under 18 - a difference of 5.2%. The fact that TX is significantly younger than MA has everything to do with the difference in unmarried numbers.
Sullivan then shifts gears to look at the comparative abortion rates in the US and the Netherlands. So why would Sullivan stop with the red v blue comparison? Why not compare TX and MA again to continue the logical conceit? Particularly if the reason for the piece is to highlight the internal conflicts within America...
Perhaps because the ostentatious reason given for the piece is really just cover for a hit on conservatives.
Perhaps because the comparison on this statistic does not support his poorly reasoned argument. The TX rate is 24.8 abortions / 1000 women and the MA rate is 30.2 abortions / 1000 women. (source) The numbers are even worse when you consider the ratio of abortions to births. Using this source, the birth rate in TX is 17.6 / 1000 persons and in 13.0 in MA. Without counting miscarriages, it appears pretty clear that a higher percentage of conceptions in MA (53%) end in abortions than in TX (41%). (for this stat, conceptions = births + miscarriages)
Then Sullivan adds this beaut: "A recent study, however, found no measurable difference in divorce rates between those who are "born again" and those who are not. 29 percent of Baptists have been divorced, compared to 21 percent of Catholics." (again making me think this is more of a hit piece than anything else). Rather than continuing the comparison across red and blue, Sullivan is now comparing against two different red groups (Catholics voted Republican in this past election). Further the comparison loses all sense of perspective. Both of these groups have divorce rates much lower than the national average (about half of all marriages end in divorce). So in light of Sullivan's thesis - the Baptists (and the Catholics) are practicing what they preach - the Catholics are just a little bit better about it. And this might just be influenced by the greater emphasis that Catholics place on divorce - you can't divorce and be considered a good Catholic - it's a mortal sin (i.e. the Catholics preach against divorce more, so they divorce less - words do line up with actions).
The rest of the article is just a long sequence of ad hominen tu quoques - the very form of argument that TNR railed against. So if you want to read one of the worst reasoned articles I've read in a while, go read Sullivan's piece.
A final note - I exchanged some emails with Sullivan on my problems with his article. While I'm grateful for his response, Sullivan hasn't given any appearance of wanting to correct the logical errors. Thus, the best recourse left to me was to post this.
UpdatePer Roger's and Matt's comments, the abortion rates are inflated due my abortion stats only being for women 15-44 (which I failed to notice) versus birth rates for the entire population. When you correct for that, the abortion/conception rates drop down to the better (but still too high) rate of around 25%.
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